Fast Burn (Body Armor #4)(51)

“I can’t,” Sahara insisted. “It would wound me. Ask Brand. He knows I’m not an idle person.”

“Gospel truth,” Brand said. “But why don’t both you ladies relax and I’ll clear the table?” He stood and took the dishes straight out of Sahara’s hands.

“Excellent idea,” Ann said. As if she’d been hoping for a chance to get her son alone, she added, “And while you do that, I’ll make coffee to go with the dessert.”

“I can make coffee,” Brand said.

“Don’t be obtuse,” his dad remarked. Then he said to Sahara, “Ann makes the best pineapple upside-down cake. I hope you like it.”

“How could I not?” Soon as mother and son left the room, she continued her conversation with John. “So Brand tells me you’re something of a gun aficionado?”

“Have quite a collection,” he said with a nod. John was a big brawny man without Brand’s height, but he was like an excited kid when it came to his weapons. “You want to see?”

“I would love to see, thank you. Do you think we have time before dessert?”

John, already pushing back his chair, nodded. “When those two get to yakking in the kitchen, it could take hours. They won’t miss us.”

Sahara seriously doubted that was true, but she was anxious to better her acquaintance with Brand’s dad. On the way to his study, which, he explained, was converted from a guest bedroom, she got to see more of the house.

Everything was picture-perfect and she easily imagined Brand growing up here, how he might have used the old tire swing in the tree out front and probably put his shoes in the cubby by the front door... She even visualized him and his “mom” having long, meaningful chats in the kitchen before he left for school.

When they passed one bedroom, she stopped to stare. “Don’t tell me. This was Brand’s room?”

Beaming, John stepped back and looked into the room with her. “He got tall quick and we had to get him a big bed. Storage on the ceiling, too, since he was into just about every sport there is.”

Sahara could hear the pride and she mentally added “tossing ball with his dad” to her list of childhood delights. “So he was always an athlete?”

“Naturally strong, naturally fast.”

“Naturally cocky?”

John grinned. “Not too much.”

“Just right. I agree.” The headboard and one side of the king-size bed butted up against walls. A navy blue corduroy spread rested over checked sheets and two fluffy pillows. From the walls, and yes, the ceiling, hung everything from a hockey stick, skis, baseball bats, mitts, oars and even things she didn’t recognize. The room should have felt crowded, but instead it felt...loved. “He had a terrific childhood, didn’t he?”

“We tried to give him the best we could.”

She turned and, on impulse, gave the older man a hug. “You succeeded.”

“Here now,” he said, his beefy hand patting her back. “What’s that for?”

“Just a thank-you.” She stepped away, feeling ridiculously grateful, but damn it, Brand had gotten the childhood she hadn’t. While his pseudo parents had loved him to the hilt, hers had chosen to jet around the world. If it hadn’t been for Scott—

No, she wouldn’t go down that morose road right now, not when she was having such an amazing time learning Brand’s history. “Let’s see those guns.”

“And rifles,” he said, once again hustling her along.

*

CARRYING THEIR COFFEE, Brand and his mom found Sahara out back with his dad, poised in her heels and formfitting dress, with a lever-action Winchester rifle, the butt of the stock braced against her shoulder. He already knew she was aiming for a target a good distance away, because it was the same target he’d shot with his dad a thousand times.

“Is she any good?” Ann asked.

Brand smiled. “At everything.” An odd sort of pride swelled inside him. If he was a betting man, he’d put his money on Sahara nailing a bull’s-eye.

“She has good form,” Ann noted. “Gotta say, I’ve never seen anyone shoot dressed like that.”

She was fucking gorgeous, but he only nodded.

“She’s beautiful, Brand.”

Knowing his mom fished, Brand said without inflection, “That she is.”

When Sahara fired, she didn’t flinch, not from the sound or the kick. She lowered the rifle muzzle toward the ground, gave a serene smile and started talking to John—who stared at her in stupefaction.

Yup, Brand knew that look: she’d nailed it.

For another twenty minutes, Brand stood there with his mom, watching as she went through several other weapons, guns and rifles alike.

As Brand had said, she was good at everything.

John, more astonished and impressed by the moment, asked, “Are you any good with a knife?”

Brand called out, “She’s great with a homemade dagger.”

Knowing what he meant, Sahara tossed back her head and laughed.

“A dagger?” John asked, now confused.

“More like a shiv,” she explained. “Out of necessity, I made it from a small metal heater.”

Brand joined her in the tree-shaded yard. “With a bra for a handle grip.”